The present invention relates to a tissue and seedling culture bottle, and more particularly to a bicomponent culture bottle having an upper portion which eliminates the conventional narrow bottle mouth and cap and has an improved and integrally formed top air vent so that the culture bottle can be effectively manufactured with less material and a simpler process while the rate of infected and damaged seedlings can be largely reduced.
In order to be more easily exposed under the sunshine and to stand high temperature sterilization, most of the conventional tissue and seedling culture bottles are made of glass. To facilitate the sealing of such culture bottle, the bottle usually has a smaller upper opening and a wider lower base and is integrally formed, as shown in FIG. 1. In the process of tissue culture, the filling of culture medium, the sterilization, the transplantation of seedling, and the removal of the bottle cultured seedlings from the culture medium, are accomplished through the bottle mouth which is about 3.5 cm in diameter. To avoid difficult bacteria-free sealing, the upper opening of the culture bottle can not be enlarged and has to be some distance away from the bottle cultured seedlings or seedling base. All of these are inconvenient to the tissue culture for the following reasons:
a. Seedlings cultured in the culture bottle are dense and vulnerable and therefore must be removed out of the bottle with forceps by experienced and skilled operators to reduce the percentage of damaged seedlings;
b. The seedlings must be removed from the culture bottle with great care and therefore the removal is time-consuming and inefficient;
c. The seedlings removed out of the culture bottle are easily damaged and infected by bacteria or viruses that reduces the survival percent of the bottle cultured seedlings and slows down the growth of seedlings in early stage; and
d. In order to prevent the loss of bottle cultured seedlings, people can break the culture bottle to take out all the seedlings from the bottle at one time. However, this causes environmental pollution and increases the cost of cultivation.
To improve the above-mentioned shortcomings existing in the conventional tissue and seedling culture bottles, the applicant invented a "Bottle For Cultivating Seedlings" which has been granted a Taiwan patent and filed in U.S.A. with a Ser. No. 07/868,435. The bottle according to that previous invention has been largely adopted by many professional seedling culture organizations and farms and is found to effectively meet the functions intended by the invention and largely eliminates the shortcomings in the conventional seedling culture bottles. In a series of subsequent and consistent observations, the applicant finds the critical key point to a successful culture of tissue and seedlings is the effective control, prevention, and interception of invasion of bacteria and viruses into the culture bottle during the culture. Among many factors of infection, the poor sealing of the upper opening of culture bottle and the air vents in the culture bottle cap is an important one. That is, there are still other disadvantages existing in the conventional culture bottles in addition to the above-mentioned ones:
1. For a conventional culture bottle 1, when it is filled with the culture medium 11 and is subjected to high temperature sterilization or is exposed to and heated by the sunshine, the air inside the bottle becomes high-pressure gas 12 which applies force on the bottle cap 13 and pushes the same outward. A gap 14 is then formed between the cap and the bottle mouth. The gap 14 is an access point for the bacteria and viruses to the culture medium.
2. The conventional culture bottle 1 usually has an upper opening, a cap, and all the air vents in the cap are facing upward. Apart from the cap 13 that tends to be infected by the bacteria and viruses due to the reason as described in the above item 1, a circle of recess 15 at the joint of bottle mouth 10 and the cap 13 also tends to be covered by built dust or dirt and forms a source of infection. A sheet of clear plastic cloth or cellophane is usually used to wrap the cap 13 for effectively sealing the bottle mouth. This surely increases the material cost.
The above disadvantages were not considered in my previous invention and the upper portion thereof has a structure similar to that of a conventional culture bottle.
It is therefore an objective of the applicant to develop an improved tissue and seedling culture bottle to eliminate the above shortcomings and disadvantages existing in the conventional culture bottles.